Some seasonal crafting

When I was a child, we used to use my father's old rugby socks as christmas stockings. They were the biggest, longest, stretchiest socks in the house. They may not have been seasonally appropriate, but we kids thought it was quite funny, and somehow Santa always seemed to know whose goodies (which I seem to remember always included an orange) to put into which sock.

With our own young family now, we're establishing some new traditions though. The prime one for me is making something handmade to add to our collection of Christmas decorations, for use in years to come. This kind of arose out of nowhere, but I've done it for the last couple of years, and I like the idea of carrying on with it. There is so much inspiration out there in crafty blog/pinterest/flickr land (check out Whip Up for instance) that I'm sure I'll run out of years before I run out of projects.

This year I was contemplating a wreath, but C got me off the hook (this year at least) when he came home from a Christmas themed library storytime session with a wreath he made (with Grandma's assistance I'm sure) out of paper, coloured patty pan liners and glitter. It's now adorning our front door. So I decided to make some stockings instead- one for C, and one for his future sibling (who incidentally, still appears to be in no hurry to arrive). This is the result.



I roughly followed the instructions on Purl Bee for Simple Embroidered Stockings, but drew up my own pattern, and opted for some button embellishment in lieu of embroidery. The red fabric is a linen/cotton from Spotlight which has a silvery, glimmery coating finish on one side. I had a collection of red, clear and silver speckled buttons that I picked up a good while back in a Buttonmania "buy by weight" sale which I thought would add an easy touch of decorative bling, and distinguishing ID to the fold down cuff (random button embellishment seems to be a recurring theme with my Christmas decorations). C seems pleased with it (discussions about where to best place it so that Santa can fill it have been conducted) and I'm also happy with the result (just hoping that the sizing is OK for Santa's stocking fillers).

I hope your own christmas crafting efforts are proving satisfying too!